CSU is holding a Change of Preference Information Day in Sydney on 3 and 4 January 2007. Market Development Manager Cheryl Howell said the information session is mainly aimed at Sydney school leavers.“It doesn’t have to be a traumatic time. We will have Prospective Student Advisors (PSA) there to talk to them about their options. For students at or near CSU Campus towns we have open day every day, so if they want to come and talk to PSAs at any time they can do that.” CSU’s Contact Centre is extending its opening hours from 8.30am through to 5.30pm for the whole of January. January 4 2007 is the last day for NSW university applicants to change their course preferences for the main round of offers due out later that month.

Carbon emissions trading is a great idea waiting to happen, according to Charles Sturt University’s environment economist Mark Morrison. Dr Morrison says he agrees with Prime Minister John Howard, who said at the APEC summit late last week that any carbon trading system would have to be global to suceed. “The global effort is going to be ineffective unless everyone is going to involved,” said Dr Morrison. “Very few countries are meeting their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. Australia is going to be one of the most severely affected countries. The ability of agricultural land in Australia to produce the way it has historically is very unlikely, if you believe the global warming forecasts and I do.”

The 48 members of the staff/student choir on Charles Sturt University's (CSU) Bathurst Campus of  were in fine voice on Friday 24 August when they won first place in the Chief Choral Section of the 62nd annual Bathurst Eisteddfod. The choir is under the direction of Dr Christopher Klopper, music lecturer at the CSU School of Teacher Education. “This is the second year in a row that we have won this section, and we are all delighted,” Dr Klopper said. “We scored 97 out of a possible 100 and the adjudicator noted ‘A fresh and vital choral blend, with exemplary diction … for a large group the precision was wholly noteworthy. Best of all, the music made one feel uplifted. ‘Brilliant’ is a marketplace cliché, but it must be applied here’.” Participation in the CSU choir is open to all students and staff on the Bathurst Campus.

The peak body for Australian agricultural scientists and technologists has honoured the life-time professional work of Charles Sturt University’s (CSU) Emeritus Professor Ted Wolfe. The Australian Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology (AIAST), representing professionals working in agricultural science and natural resource management, has made Professor Wolfe a Fellow of the Institute. He has a lengthy involvement with agricultural education at the University which in recent years has seen him lead international student exchanges between CSU and the University of Delaware, USA. Professor Wolfe has also been recognised for his work in building the agricultural capacity of countries like North Korea and Eritrea, visiting and building ties with both countries. He believes strongly in the benefit of these visits to scientific agriculture and to farmers, not only in the host country but also in Australia. “Following the recent run of poor seasons, the Australian agricultural sector deserves on-going community support for the valuable role it plays in food security, land care and earning export income,” said Professor Wolfe. Outgoing Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture and Science Professor Jim Pratley said this was a fitting and richly deserved reward for Professor Wolfe for his tireless commitment to agriculture and AIAST.

Charles Sturt University graduate David Ford has won the Great Australian Story Challenge with his short film, A Little Bit of Magic. David graduated this year with a Bachelor of Arts (Television Production), and will now spend three months working with Australian Story at ABC TV. “I have a lot of respect for both the program and the ABC. I feel I have the capacity to make good stories, but it is also knowing how to work within a particular production environment. I don’t know where it will take me or what it will hold but it is looking optimistic.” A Little Bit of Magic tells the story of Cliff Armitage, who had an amazing career change since being involved in the gun control policy formation after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre. David says making the film was a challenge “because I was doing the lighting, sound and camera, as well as producing and directing and researching”. Last year David filmed a travelogue documentary about his time spent at an African AIDS orphanage, which airs in July on cable TV in Australia, and later in New Zealand and Indonesia.

Staff and employees from Wangerang Industries in Orange will receive training at Charles Sturt University (CSU) today giving them a new range of work skills for the local viticulture industry. CSU Vineyard Manager, Peter Cannon, viticulture lecturer Peter Hedberg and horticulture lecturer John Eiseman have combined their knowledge to instruct employees in the specialist skills of vine pruning, spur pruning, safety and equipment handling and care. Wangerang Industries provide the region’s mentally and physically disabled with a chance to work. Wangerang Industries CEO, Marc Bonney is excited by the prospect of offering his employees skills in horticulture.

The good news is that Australian soldiers currently in East Timor probably won’t suffer Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) upon their return home. The bad news is that the Iraq War veterans probably will, according to Sergeant Grant Coultman-Smith, a lecturer with Charles Sturt University (CSU). He should know - as a combat veteran, Sergeant Coultman-Smith has suffered from PTSD for over 36 years. He is a Vietnam veteran, worked in post-incident relief after Cyclone Tracy in Darwin and is now an Emergency Response Coordinator with Victoria Police. He is also a CSU Masters graduate in emergency management, a casual lecturer with the University’s School of Public Health and a qualified hostage negotiator. According to Sergeant Coultman-Smith, Vietnam veterans particularly suffer from PTSD because, in addition to the horrors and trauma they experienced, they faced a hostile Australian community and were not debriefed when they came home.

Is there such a thing as a balanced assessment of the “Intelligent Design -Creation Science” controversy? Professor David Goldney from Charles Sturt University (CSU) believes so. The well-known scientist and environmental consultant, who has lived and worked in the Bathurst community since 1972, is a committed Christian and an Adjunct Professor at CSU. Professor Goldney estimates almost half the world’s scientists are Christian on some level, but still accept the theory of evolution, including himself. “While I’m a Christian, I’m committed to Darwinian evolution and I think the ‘Intelligent Design’ argument is way off track. There’s a continuum of people, from ‘flat earthers’ to creation scientists, with the view that evolution leads only to atheism and proves there is no God. Somewhere in there might be some middle ground.” Three public lectures are planned for June, where Professor Goldney will “go through the range of creation stories that a Christian might look at and still remain an honest scientist with integrity and accept faith”.

Charles Sturt University (CSU) Honours student, James Bekkema, has won an Apple University Consortium Scholarship and will now attend The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference to be held in San Francisco in August. Sue Moffatt, Head of CSU’s School of Information Technology, describes James as “one smart cookie”, saying the highly sought-after scholarship was won in a competitive national competition between 36 Australian universities. She says James is "an exceptional student who has done much of the Mac development work on his own initiative". The conference includes presentations, dinners, a tour of the US Apple Campus and a keynote speech by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple. “I’m really looking forward to ‘Student Sunday’. I’m currently an Honours student, and this could well be my last year of University, so I'll be asking Apple computer representatives what they are looking for in a university student,” said Mr Bekkema.